"Supposing you can't reach it," she said.
"There is always some within reach."
"I suppose grown-ups can always reach things," said Betty.
Later, in the quiet darkness of the night, I could picture the garden, the roses, the distant moor, Lady Mary's beautiful face, but I could not bring myself to believe that I had really heard those words, "I am sure that he cares."
Surely I had dreamed them, or Lady Mary had, because if they were true, why had he said nothing? How should he have told her what he could not tell me?
Chapter XVII
Then came that wonderful morning on which I read that Captain Paul Buchanan was coming home, was expected to arrive that very day. I opened the paper at breakfast, as usual and my eyes caught the word that at any time had the power to set my heart thumping and to send the blood rushing to my head, a word common enough, and which to most people, beyond relating to a country always interesting, means little—Africa. It is curious that a day that is to change the whole of one's life should begin exactly like any other day. Of the most important things we have no premonition, most of us.
That what I longed and prayed for every hour of my life should come to pass was not wonderful, but that a day on which I was to be called to make the greatest sacrifice of my life should steal stealthily upon me seems strange.
That morning when I came downstairs, my little house in Chelsea looked exactly like it always had done. The sun shone as the sun does shine in the early winter in London, and no more, until after I had read that paragraph; then, behold a new world was born. Why had my eyes been blind to the gloriousness of the morning? Why had I thought the day an ordinarily dull one with just the amount of pale sunshine which is meted out to those happy people who are wise enough to live within easy reach of the river? Yes, I know, some people do say that Chelsea is foggy.